Stroke of Genius (20 page)

The pain Richard anticipated causing was undoubtedly greater.

Finally, he threw open the door to the portrait gallery and stalked down to the larger-than-life painting at the far end.

“I’d like you to meet someone, Hawke.” He waved a hand toward the last portrait in the long line. “Christian Sinclair Royce, seventh Marquess of Dorset. He was my father.” Richard paused for effect. “And, I believe, yours.”

While he waited in hope for Galatea to choose him, Pygmalion was forced to wrestle with a few unpleasant truths.

About himself.

Crispin gaped dumbfounded at the painting.

“The likeness is striking, isn’t it?” the marquess said. “You see now why I stared a bit rudely when we first met at Almack’s. It was as if I’d met a ghost.”

For Crispin, it was like looking into a magic mirror and seeing himself a decade or two in the future.

“Of course, there’s no way to positively prove paternity—” the marquess began.

“I have proof,” Crispin said woodenly as he reached to trace the monogram beneath the painted figure’s booted foot. CRS.

Cris.
Just when he thought he’d given up wanting to know.

“The only thing I have from my mother is a handkerchief with these initials embroidered in gold.” Crispin could have drawn the florid, curling decoration around the letters with his eyes closed. “It’s the same unique embellishment. The same monogram.”

“Careless of him to leave a hanky lying about where one of his doxies could nick it.”

The punch was thrown before the urge to do it even passed through Crispin’s brain. It connected with Dorset’s jaw and sent the marquess sprawling on the thick Turkish rug.

Crispin didn’t care if Dorset was a peer of the realm. He leaped onto him, straddled the man’s chest and rained a storm of blows on him, which the marquess managed to barely fend off by covering his face with his forearms.

“Pax!”
came the muffled shout. “I apologize. I shouldn’t have insulted your mother.”

“No, you shouldn’t.” Crispin rolled off him and struggled to his feet, his thigh throbbing. “She didn’t deserve what he did to her.”

“Which was?”

“After he begot me? Nothing. Nothing at all. He never gave her a bit of help. She died alone…in a whorehouse, old at twenty-five.” He was tempted to spit on the painting, but he’d already trounced the marquess. Defacing his family’s heirlooms would add insult to injury, and Dorset couldn’t help who his father was any more than Crispin could.

The marquess rose shakily to his feet. He evidently wasn’t going to call for his servants to restrain Crispin and turn him over the magistrate, though he’d be within his rights to do so. However, Crispin noticed Dorset was careful to maintain a healthy distance between them.

“If it’s any consolation, you were fortunate not to know him,” Dorset said. “He was charming and urbane and unspeakably cruel. I think he drove my mother a little mad.”

Crispin was silent, eyeing the marquess. “It would have been a simple thing to keep me from seeing this portrait. I have no claim on you or this estate. Why are you telling me this?”

“Your leg is twitching and I suspect you’ve loosened a couple of my teeth. Come, Hawke. Let us sit like reasonable men and discuss how we may help each other.”

Crispin followed him to the pair of burgundy leather wing chairs flanking a fireplace large enough to roast an ox whole. He sank into the seat gratefully and massaged his thigh.

“Your jaw is bruising,” Crispin pointed out with a certain amount of satisfaction. “Beyond the closure of finally knowing my true parentage, I can’t see what there is to discuss. To be honest, I’ve done well for myself. I have no need of your help.”

“Let us say that I am in need of yours.” Lord Dorset pulled a key from his pocket. Then he opened a cleverly hidden deep drawer in the table beside his chair. He drew out a decanter of liquor and two small glasses. “Sherry. A rather pleasant vice I’ve recently acquired. Join me.”

Hawke accepted the jigger and knocked back its contents.

“After we met at Almack’s, I made some inquiries,” Dorset said. “You are indeed wealthier than most of the earls I know, so money will not entice you to help me. Other than your peccadilloes with married women, you have no vices I could use to convince you—no gambling debts, no opium addiction.” Dorset sipped his sherry, savoring the flavor. “That surprised me, by the way, given the level of pain you obviously live with.”

“What is it you need me to do?”

“I’m going to give you an opportunity to spit in the old devil’s eye, Hawke.” Dorset refilled Hawke’s glass and raised his in mock toast to the portrait of their mutual sire. “The man made a bastard of you. How would you like to put a bastard of your own in line for his title?”

Hawke suspected it wasn’t only Lord Dorset’s mother who was a little mad. “What are you suggesting?”

Dorset drew a deep breath. “A year ago, I suffered an
accident. I bought a green-broke Arabian stallion and the damn thing kicked me in the groin. Suffice it to say the incident rendered me…incapable of continuing the Dorset line.” The marquess downed the rest of his sherry. “Spare me any sympathy. I am Dorset. I need none of your pity. I do, however, need you.”

Crispin looked back up at the picture of his father. It was damned inconsiderate of him to die before Crispin could give him the beating he deserved. Was there a way to pay his father back for the years of privation and neglect? Did he even need to deliver retribution for his mother anymore? His memories of her were hazy, but he suspected she wouldn’t want him to spread around any misery on her account.

“I intend to marry Miss Makepeace,” Dorset said, as if merely speaking the words would make it so. “After the ceremony, I will explain to her the nature of my ailment and the arrangement you and I have reached.”

“What arrangement is that?”

“And you’re supposed to be a genius,” Dorset muttered with irritation. “There’s no disputing your Dorset blood and that’s what is important. You will father children on my future wife, with the utmost discretion, of course, and I will claim them as mine. The Dorset line will thus continue to the benefit of all.”

Crispin wondered if there was something stronger than alcohol in that decanter. “I understand why you think you need me, but why Grace?”

“Not that it’s any of your business, but Miss Make-peace’s family seems willing to go to any length to secure a title for her. An Englishwoman of noble family could hardly be expected to agree to this plan.”

Anger burned in Crispin’s veins at the insult to Grace. “So you intend to marry her and then make a whore of her?”

“You’re missing the point.”

“No, you’re missing the point.” Crispin stood and began to pace. He needed to move lest he pop Dorset in the face again. “You don’t know Grace. She won’t marry one man and bed another.”

“Once she realizes it’s the only way for her to conceive—”

“It won’t matter. She’s a woman of principle. Damn it, she’s the sort who
will
pity you when she learns about your accident and might even convince herself to love you because of it.”

“Then you’ll have to convince her otherwise,” Dorset said. “You can do that, I think. I mean, haven’t you already convinced this principled young woman out of her maidenhead?”

There was no point in denying it. Dorset evidently
did
know everything that happened on his estate.

“I don’t ask this for myself. Do you think I wanted to tell you that I—” The marquess’s lip clamped tight for a moment while he composed himself. Then he continued in a reasonable, even tone. “There is no other heir, no ancillary line. If I die without a son, the marquessate devolves to the Crown and my people here would likely be scattered. It is my duty to care for this land and the lives attached to it. Yours, too, as a bearer of Dorset blood. Dare I say it?” He grimaced but still forced the words from his throat. “As my brother.”

“And you expect me to pay for my Dorset blood by rutting your marchioness on command?”

Dorset’s eyes narrowed. “There is no need to be crude.”

“Sorry. Being raised in a whorehouse doesn’t lend itself to fine manners.”

“And being raised in a manor house doesn’t prepare one to accept no for an answer.”

If Lord Dorset had suggested this unholy arrangement to him a few weeks ago, Crispin would have leaped at the chance. Grace would merely be the latest member of his Unhappy Wives of Inattentive Husbands Club, with said husband’s blessing! He’d have the delicious duty of consoling her on a regular basis and keep his precious freedom.

Now freedom didn’t have the same allure. He wanted more than Grace’s body, he was surprised to discover. He wanted to wake up beside her. To watch her go about her day. To discover why she had a perpetual ink stain on her finger. It would take his whole life to learn Grace by heart, but he was prepared to devote the time.

“You’d better prepare yourself for disappointment,
Brother,
because it won’t work. I won’t be a party to this. I won’t diminish Grace this way.” Crispin raked a hand through his hair. “Good God, man, she’s not just a convenient womb for your heir. Perhaps she’d be happy not to face childbed. It’s no light matter, you know.”

Dorset frowned at him for a moment, clearly puzzled by Crispin’s response; then his sandy brows lifted. “You love her,” the marquess said in wonderment.

“Yes, and
I
intend to marry her.” The words, like the punch he threw earlier, flew out his mouth before he thought them. But they sounded right when he said them.

Dorset stood, his face furious. “If you try, I will ruin you. The
ton
will learn of your sordid whore of a mother. No one will buy your art. It will be tainted by your past. You’ll be reduced to making chalk drawings on the pavers and begging for tuppence, I promise you.”

“I give you leave to try, my lord,” Crispin said, rising to sketch a sardonic bow. “Rumors of my past have been tittered over for years, each story more outlandish than the last. If anything, it only drives more interest in my work and raises the fees I’m able to command. Perhaps
I should start circulating the tale about who sired me myself. If you’ll pardon me, my lord, I have work to do.”

Crispin turned to go.

“Then I’ll ruin her.”

That stopped him.

“What will the
ton
say when they hear of the way Miss Makepeace couldn’t keep her knees together in my cottage? Hmm?” Dorset raised a brow at him.

“If I marry her—”

“It will only serve to substantiate the tale.” The marquess laughed unpleasantly. “But I daresay it would please a number of folk to see you brought to heel.”

“Do what you will with me, but the Makepeaces don’t need the
ton.
Grace’s father is a wealthy man,” Crispin shot back. “They can always go home and escape your malicious rumor mongering.”

“Yes, I’ll see to it her family runs back to Boston with their heads hanging low and their tails tucked. And I have agents in Philadelphia who will be happy to make a trip to Boston to put word of Miss Makepeace’s indiscretions in a few of the right ears there as well.”

Crispin shook his head. He grew up in the gutter with much less seething bitterness than emanated from the marquess now. Losing one’s manhood was a blow, no doubt, and Crispin pitied him, but turning vicious wouldn’t restore it.

“It seems that horse took more than your balls, Dorset. It took your honor as well.”

Crispin glanced up at the cruel, handsome face in the portrait. If growing up under their father’s thumb is what warped his half brother’s soul, Crispin decided he’d been better off at Peel’s Abbey.

“Do as you will, my lord,” Crispin said as he turned to stalk out. “And I will do as I must.”

Lord Dorset poured himself another sherry, but thought better of it. With a low growl, he tossed the glass into the fireplace with a tinkling crash before he stomped out the same way Hawke left.

At the window to the right of the fireplace, the heavy velvet draperies fluttered, then parted slightly and Lady Sheppleton peered cautiously around the long gallery. The room was finally empty. She drew a relieved breath and crept out of her hiding place.

Sweat trickled from her brow and the armpits of her morning gown were ringed with damp. The concealed window seat had been deucedly hot, but she couldn’t have allowed herself to be caught poking around the little-used rooms of the grand house. Her instinct to skitter behind the drawn curtains when she first heard Lord Dorset and the artist coming proved the correct course of action.

The things one heard when no one was aware of one’s presence! Excitement bubbled inside her like a pot near to boiling.

“Wait till Lord Washburn hears about this,” she mumbled. A bastard’s true parentage, an illicit liaison between Hawke and Miss Makepeace and an impotent marquess’s indecent proposal. It was too delicious.

The gods are never content that mankind should find joy with ease. Pygmalion wasn’t the least surprised when they hurled new obstacles in his path.

Lady Dorset lifted a little gilt bell from her side table and the slight hum of conversation in her suite halted immediately. All eyes turned expectantly toward her. “Tea is concluded. I require privacy now.”

Almost as one, her guests made their obeisance and headed toward the door.

“Oh, Miss Washburn,” Lady Dorset said as if it were an afterthought, “you will remain.”

One of the joys of being a marchioness meant one never had to ask. One simply commanded.

Mrs. Makepeace shot a quick look at her cousin, and Lady Dorset knew she was trying to think of some way to stay as well. If there was one thing the marchioness could spot clear across a room, it was a social climber and that Boston matron had all but left footprints on her English cousins’ backs. It concerned Lady Dorset that Richard was serious about the woman’s daughter, but at least Grace did not favor her mother overmuch, either in looks or comportment.

When the last guest closed the door to her suite behind them, Lady Dorset turned her gaze to Mary Washburn.

“Sit.”

“I prefer to stand, my lady,” came the firm, but mild reply.

“We haven’t time to bicker over trifles. I said sit.” She was slightly mollified with Mary perched on an ottoman. “The vicar tells me you have not signed the document.”

“No.”

“And why not?”

“Because it is a lie. You ask me to affirm no marriage took place and I cannot.”

“If it’s money you’re angling for, you won’t get it,” Lady Dorset said, waggling a finger at the chit. “I’ll see you ruined before I give you a single pence.”

“I don’t want Richard’s money.”

“You will not address him so informally.”

“I haven’t addressed him at all, as you requested,” Mary said, her hands composed on her lap. “But neither will I sign that paper.”

“My son intends to marry your American cousin.”

Mary met her gaze directly. “And yet you objected so strongly to him marrying down the first time.”

“There was no marriage!” she said, emphasizing each word. “If Richard is satisfied with the Makepeace girl, I am, too. Well moneyed is almost as good as wellborn, but you are neither. Don’t think to hold him back by shackling him to an ill-considered affair.”

“It was no affair. We are wed, even if you and he refuse to admit it.”

“And now it must be annulled.”

“No,” Mary said. “It cannot be.” She stood and walked to the window, pretending to gaze out. “There…there is a child. Four years ago, I bore Richard a son. I was sent away when he was born and now my brother claims Teddy is a fosterling from distant relations. But the truth is, he is my son. Mine and Richard’s. And I will not sign a document that makes him a bastard.”

All the air seemed to flee from the room and Lady
Dorset didn’t even hear the door close when Mary left without so much as a nod of dismissal.

“Hold still, mam’selle,” Claudette ordered while she worked on Grace’s hair. “You must look your best for the dancing this evening.”

Grace had been forced through several changes of clothing and hairstyles throughout the day as new members of the house party arrived. She was wearing a pale green gown with a blue spencer when she met Lord and Lady Sumter and their three exceedingly unmarried daughters. They presented themselves for the noon meal, at which their host was conspicuously absent.

Then in late afternoon, Grace changed into a delicate cream silk to keep her appointment for tea with the dowager marchioness.

“All day long it is busy, busy, busy with the servants coming with the new guests. Where they shall put us all, I am not knowing. When you were taking the tea, did you meet any of the party?” Claudette asked as she gathered Grace’s hair into a fist.

“Yes, there was quite a press in the marchioness’s suite of rooms. Mother was most upset to discover we were not the only ones invited for soggy cucumber sandwiches and weak tea with Lady Dorset.”

The most exciting and mysterious thing that happened was when the dowager marchioness demanded Mary remain at the end. Grace was burning with curiosity about the confidential tête-à-tête, but Mary was such a private person, she didn’t want to pry.

During the long, stuffy tea, Grace had been presented to three earls, a viscount and one exceedingly pompous fellow who proclaimed himself Sir Anthony Longbotham. There was also an assortment of ladies,
all borrowing their status from their husbands or fathers. All very proper and sedate.

And all deadly dull.

No one had read any interesting books, seen any thought-provoking plays or taken note of anything done outside the limited circle of their wellborn acquaintances. If being a titled lady meant one had to confine one’s interests to the weather and the proper way to tat doilies, Grace would pass on the honor.

She was ready to pass on it in any case. She knew in her heart that she could not marry Lord Dorset. Not after giving herself to Crispin. There was nothing left of her heart to offer anyone else.

He claimed it all.

She hadn’t seen him since Claudette spirited her away from him that morning. She ought to have refused to leave like that, even if it meant being caught together. Much had passed between them during the long night of loving, but there remained much to settle.

Grace resolved not to seek her bed that night until she’d done just that.

Clairmont boasted a splendid ballroom on the third floor, complete with a little balcony where the musicians tuned their instruments while overlooking the dancers below. The swelled ranks of the house party milled about the room, gathering in tight little knots that broke apart and reassembled in new configurations as everyone made it their business to either greet or cut one another before the festivities began in earnest.

If Almack’s were the soul of propriety and decorum, this crowd pushed fashion to its limits. The necklines of the ladies’ gowns were perilously low and the gentlemen seemed to be trying to “out-Brummell” each other in sartorial splendor.

When the first rows of dancers began forming for
the opening cotillion, Grace searched the room for Crispin. This was typically a slow dance and one he might try. But he was nowhere to be seen.

When Sir Anthony appeared before her begging the honor of the first dance, she couldn’t in good conscience refuse.

“Good evening, my lord.” Crispin gave his wellborn half brother a bow when he encountered in him the corridor on the way to the ballroom.

After working all afternoon on his
Diana
without a break, he’d bathed and donned his finest suit of clothing, the one he’d worn when he first presented himself to the Makepeaces. If he and Lord Dorset stood side by side, folk would be hard-pressed to pick which was the bastard and which the peer of the realm based on dress alone.

“Hawke,” the marquess said shortly. “Have you reconsidered?”

“You know I have not.”

“Then you leave me no choice but to—”

“My lord, Mr. Hawke,” Lord Washburn called as he trotted toward them. “Just the two gentlemen I hoped to meet.”

Lord Dorset glared at Washburn.

“Oh! Am I interrupting something?” he asked all innocence. “It wouldn’t happen to be about my American cousin, would it?”

“Why would you think that?” Hawke asked.

“Because I heard some rather distressing news about…” Washburn’s gaze flitted back and forth between them with a raised brow. “Well, in the interests of discretion, might I suggest we adjourn to a more private venue?”

Lord Dorset narrowed his eyes at his neighbor. “Come, both of you. We’ll use my study.”

Crispin bit back a groan. He’d just climbed the stairs to the ballroom and now he was expected to return to the ground floor. He suspected Dorset chose his study specifically because it would be difficult for him.

But at least the marquess set a slow and decorous pace that didn’t belabor Crispin’s leg too badly.

Once they reached Lord Dorset’s study and the door latched behind them, the marquess took his seat behind an ornate cherrywood desk without suggesting they do the same. Crispin and the baron stood before him like errant schoolboys about to receive a dressing down.

“Well, Washburn, what’s this about?”

“It’s about Miss Makepeace,” the baron said. “I merely wanted to serve notice on both of you that you must cease to court her.”

Crispin clapped his hands slowly. “Bravo, Washtub! That’s the best imitation of a pompous toad I’ve ever seen.”

Which only made Grace’s cousin the baron puff his inconsiderable chest out further in indignation.

“Surely such a
request
would be more appropriate coming from her father instead of her distant relation,” Lord Dorset said. “I don’t believe you have a dog in this hunt.”

The baron snickered. “No, my lord, that honor belongs to you. Or more appropriately, I believe you have a dog that
won’t
hunt at all.”

Dorset paled, but didn’t twitch an eyelash.

“I know what you two are planning,” Washburn said with barely contained glee. “Let me assure you, it will never happen. For Grace to bear a bastard heir because Dorset here can’t get a child on her…it’s unthinkable.”

Evidently Lord Dorset wasn’t the only one who knew everything that happened at Clairmont.

Hawke decided blood—even wrong-side-of-the-blanket blood—was thicker than water. He forced a laugh and slapped Washburn on the back as if he’d told a ripe joke. “That’s rich! Someone’s been pulling your leg. Where did you hear such a load of codswallop?”

“I assure you, my source is impeccable.” Washburn folded his arms across his chest.

“No doubt some lady who’s been scheming to get her hooks into his lordship herself,” Hawke said. “Leaving aside the fact that I’m certain Miss Makepeace would never be party to such a plan, your information about his lordship is wrong. Ordinarily, I’d never betray a confidence, but my dear friend Olympia Sharp let slip that she’d been visited by the marquess on numerous occasions when he was last in London.”

At the mention of the notorious courtesan’s name both men’s ears pricked.

“A gentleman doesn’t speak of such things, Hawke,” the marquess reproved gently, but Crispin saw gratitude in his eyes.

“Forgive me, my lord. If I may say so, Olympia was frankly agog at your lordship’s considerable carnal prowess—her words, mind you.” Crispin knew Olympia wouldn’t care if he put a few well-chosen compliments into her generous mouth. The marquess’s shoulders relaxed slightly. Crispin turned back to Washburn. “I greatly fear your source is mistaken.”

“She’s not mistaken about you, though, Hawke,” Washburn said, revealing his source’s gender, probably without intending to. “You’ve been so careful to cultivate an air of mystery surrounding your background, but the truth is you are the son of a common Cheapside whore.”

“If it were true, and I’m not saying it isn’t, wouldn’t
that render my genius all the more brilliant?” Hawke bared his teeth at Washburn in a fierce parody of a smile.

“And you would yoke my dear sweet cousin with you, an upstart from the gutter?” Washburn demanded.

“Who said I was yoking anyone?”

“Oh, that’s right. You’d rather just rut her and let a decent man take your leavings.”

The smile faded from Crispin’s face and he stepped toward the baron. “Have a care with your cousin’s reputation. I might have to call you out.”

Washburn curled his lip. “A gentleman only grants satisfaction to another gentleman. As if I’d deign to respond to the braying of a whore’s spawn.”

“Very well,” Crispin said, his tone soft, but full of silky menace. “If you persist in maligning Grace, you should know how we whores’ spawn settle matters. With a knife to your ribs.”

Clearly flustered, Washburn appealed to Dorset. “Did you hear that? The man threatened me.”

“If he hadn’t, I’d have been forced to demand satisfaction myself for your scurrilous slurs on Miss Makepeace.” Lord Dorset rose with the full majesty of his rank. “You will do nothing to sully the reputation of a guest—any guest—in my home. Do I make myself clear, sir?”

“I had hoped I could persuade the two of you to step aside for the sake of decency, but that was my mistake,” Washburn said. “Decency hasn’t had anything to do with the house of Dorset for generations.”

“Then perhaps you wish to leave it,” Dorset said.

“Willingly, my lord, but I wouldn’t want the whiff of scandal my departure would cause to dampen your house party,” Washburn said. “Unless, of course, I convince Miss Makepeace to come with me. As my fiancée.”

The baron turned on his heel and stomped out.

“When she refuses him, he’ll spread those tales about Grace,” Crispin said, rage coloring his vision as he glared after Washburn. “Is it wise to allow him to stay?”

“I can keep an eye on him while he’s in this house.”

“I meant on earth. Some people outlive their breathing privileges.”

“Don’t be hasty.” Dorset rose and came around the desk. “If I hadn’t rushed matters this afternoon, if I had been more circumspect, none of this would have happened.” He studied the thick Persian rug beneath his feet for a moment. “Your lie about a liaison with Olympia Sharp saved my dignity. I thank you for…acting a brother’s part.”

Hawke shrugged and the murderous rage he felt for Grace’s cousin dissipated a bit. “It seemed the best way to irritate Washburn at the time.”

“Unfortunately, all Washburn has to do is question Miss Sharp to find me out.”

“Don’t worry about that,” Crispin said. “I can explain things to Olympia and she’ll be only too happy to fall in with my tale. But she does love to brag about her lovers, so don’t be surprised if you catch all the ladies of the
ton
gossiping about your gifts behind their fans.”

Lord Dorset’s mouth twitched.

“Olympia’s a compassionate and clever woman,” Crispin said. “If there is a way for you to regain…well, it would not be a mistake to spend time with her.”

“If I’m betrothed, I can’t very well spend time with a courtesan, can I?” Dorset said. “And I do intend to propose to Miss Makepeace this night. Once she is my marchioness, she’ll be untouchable. It’s the best way to shield her from Washburn’s gossip.” His lips tightened. “It grieves me that I threatened to do the same thing. I must have been mad.”